Print Fact SheetAdraneothrips ephippium

Distinguishing features

Female fully winged. Body brightly tri-colored, brown, yellow and with red internal pigment. Head and thorax brown, also abdominal segments III–V and VIII–X; abdominal segment II yellow, VI–VII brownish yellow; tarsi yellow, midtibiae largely brown, hind tibiae washed with brown medially; antennal segments III–VI bicolored yellow and dark brown; fore wing with brown area sub-basally. Antennae 8-segmented; segment III with 2 sense cones, IV with 4 sense cones. Head slightly longer than wide, wider across cheeks than across eyes, projecting slightly in front of eyes; postocular setae capitate, arising posterior to inner margin of eyes; eyes prolonged slightly to posterior on ventral surface; maxillary stylets retracted to postocular setae, about one fifth of head width apart. Pronotum with 5 pairs of major setae capitate. Fore tarsus without tooth. Fore wing parallel sided, with 4 duplicated cilia. Pelta shaped like tall hat, with very slender brim and pair of campaniform sensilla. Tergites II–VII with 2 pairs of sigmoid wing-retaining setae; tergite IX setae S1 broadly blunt, shorter than tube.

Related species

The descriptive notes given here for A. ephippium are based on two specimens from San Diego County identified as this species in the collection at UC Riverside. These specimens are very similar to A. alajuela from Costa Rica, according to the key to Central and South American species in Mound & Marullo (1996), and alajuela is also known from Hawaii (Mound et al., 2017). The genus Adraneothrips currently includes 76 species, all but three of which are from the Americas, mainly from tropical areas. Four species are listed from California. Of these, Stannard (1956) described A. faustus on one short-winged male, A. ephippium on one fully winged female, and A. vacuus on six wingless individuals; A. saturatus Cott was described on about 20 wingless individuals. Studies on this genus must therefore await more extensive field sampling to gain some understanding of variation within and between species. Introductions to the diversity within this genus are provided by Dang et al. (2013) and Mound & Marullo (1996).

Biological data

Feeding on fungal hyphae and breeding in leaf litter

Distribution data

Known only from California

Family name

PHLAEOTHRIPIDAE, PHLAEOTHRIPINAE

Species name

Adraneothrips ephippium Stannard

Original name and synonyms

Adraneothrips ephippium Stannard, 1956: 24

References

Dang L-H, Mound LA & Qiao G-X (2013) Leaf-litter thrips of the genus Adraneothrips from Asia and Australia (Thysanoptera, Phlaeothripinae). Zootaxa 3716 (1): 001–021.

Mound LA & Marullo R (1996) The Thrips of Central and South America: An Introduction. Memoirs on Entomology, International 6: 1–488.

Mound LA, Matsunaga J, Bushe B, Hoddle MS & Wells A (2017) Adventive Thysanoptera Species on the Hawaiian Islands: New Records and Putative Host Associations. Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society 49: 17–28.